Pontefract Athletics Club runner Sienna Lavine goes to top of UK all-time ranking

​Sienna, who has a string of regional titles and club records to her name, became the fastest under 13 Girl ever in the UK at 600 metres when she recorded a scorching time of one minute: 35.98 seconds for the distance in last Saturday's Northern Athletics Indoor meeting at the English Institute of Sport, in Sheffield.

Sienna was seeded in the A race against the quickest under 15 boys, who shot off at a terrific speed.

At the end of the first lap, Sienna was in fourth place about 12 metres behind the three leading boys. She was still 10 to 12 metres behind at the end of lap two, but with 200 metres to go she quickly started to close the gap.

Sienna went flying past the three leaders on the back straight and continued to maintain her sprint finish, crossing the line in a time which took her to the top of the UK all time ranking list for under 13 girls.

Pontefract AC’s Julian Rutkowski finished third in the race and so fast was it run in that he also set a club record for under 15 boys with 1:38.48.

Sienna's time was more than 1.3 seconds quicker than the previous UK all time best performance and pushed Jenny Meadows, the former British Olympian and bronze medallist at the 2009 World Championships down into seventh place on the UK all time rankings.

The young Pontefract runner is currently ranked eighth on the UK all time list for under 13 girls at 800 metres following her victory in the Northern Athletics Championships at Derby in August.

She was still in her first year as an under 13 girl at that time, so there could still be more to come over the next 10 months and a further climb in the standings for a runner getting better all the time.

Her current ranking at 800 metres is eight places higher than Phoebe Gill, who finished fourth in her semi-final at the Paris Olympics in 2024 in the 800 metres.

In August 2023 at the age of 10, Sienna clocked one minute: 41.34 for the 600 metres in the West Yorkshire League. That time is listed as a record on the international records for girls aged 10, so she is already in the books as the fastest of all time in the world as a 10 year old.

She has a strong coaching team supporting her at Pontefract Athletics Club and her club chairman, Cyril Jones, believes that, while there is still a long way to go, she has every chance of becoming a future Olympian, putting the town’s club on the international map.

In the Northern Indoor meeting Pontefract’s Isabella Tordoff also produced a personal best in the under 15 girls long jump with 4.02 metres and Yannick Stevenson had a good run to clock 18.73 in the under 17 men's 150 metres.